The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 20:13, 18 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Sandra Hodgkinson (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Apart from some very brief mentions in RS: [1] [2] [3] I'm unable to find any coverage which demonstrates that WP:BIO is met. SmartSE (talk) 16:19, 9 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Law-related deletion discussions. SmartSE (talk) 16:19, 9 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Women-related deletion discussions. AleatoryPonderings (talk) 17:05, 9 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Smartse, compliance with WP:BEFORE can be tricky.

I think you missed checking the revision history of this article, and consequently missed it was subject to POV-pushing informationectomies, followed by what looks like lapses from WP:COI.

Since I last worked on this article she racked up a significant publication record. Did your BEFORE extend to taking a good look at the google scholar search and google book search results?

• Keep Hodgkinson was not merely another civil servant. She was a senior figure who went on record with significant controversial opinions -- as substantiated by RS. Geo Swan (talk) 04:08, 10 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Geo Swan: - I had seen the early revisions, e.g. but the sources don't seem sufficient in that either. It was a long time ago - Hodgkinson is notable because she replaced Charles "Cully" Stimson following his controversial resignation obviously isn't much use. I hadn't though to check google scholar, but her most cited publication appears to be this with 26 citations, so meeting WP:ACADEMIC is unlikely. All I'm seeing on Google Books is brief mentions. Please specify which sources you think push her over the notability threshold and support your claim of "significant controverial opinions -- as substantiated by RS." SmartSE (talk) 08:46, 10 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• WRT Academic - we have GNG - the general notability guideline, supplemented by a handful of special purpose notability guidelines. Those special purpose notability guidelines, like ACADEMIC, supercede GNG, in the narrow conditions where they are fully applicable. WP:SOLDIER says anyone who reaches flag rank, or who is awarded their countries highest medal merits a standalone article, without regard to whether they did or didn't measure up to GNG. I suggest you make a huge mistake in how you are trying to apply ACADEMIC here.

  No one is claiming that Hodgkinson measures up to ACADEMIC, and that her measuring up to ACADEMIC should supercede GNG.

  Only a small fraction of BLP measure up to SOLDIER, ACADEMIC, etc. Your mistake is to then act like the scholarly references that support Hodgkinson measuring up to GNG should be totally discounted. For the 95 or 97 or 99 percent of BLP whose notability is established by measuring up to GNG, not by measuring up to a special purpose guideline, like ACADEMIC, the nominator, ie you, and everyone else weighing in, has an obligation to independently evaluate all the known and knowable notability criteria, and then doing a kind of notability calculation, where they add up all those notability factors.

  The US Federal government is very large - employing millions. Does it employ tens of millions? How many people retire every year? 200,000? 300,000? When Hodgkinson retired she didn't immediately go to work as a lawyer, or for a large corporation. She accepted a fellowship, for a year or two. That is when she wrote those academic papers. Only the very smartest, most respected retiring Federal employees get invited to accept a fellowship. Some of those highly respected individuals who accept fellowships don't go on to write academic papers. They share what they learned, in government service, verbally, in seminars, or informal discussions. Those, like Hodgkinson, who do write papers, are more valuable that those who don't. Do these fellowships come with a stipend? Are they like a Post-doctoral fellowship? Can fellows who show they function like professors, by leading seminars, giving lectures, jump to being full-fledged academics? Good question. I dunno. Some fellowships may be part-time, with no stipend. Other may offer a stipend no higher than that offered to a grad student serving as a teaching assistant. And still others may pay comparably to actual professors. I suggest that, since only a tiny fraction of retiring Federal employees get one, even the largely honorary fellowship is highly prestigious, and confers considerable notability. Geo Swan (talk) 22:17, 14 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Geo Swan: So which notability criterion is met? Publishing scholarly articles is not enough to meet GNG - we need there to be multiple sources about her or at least describing her impact. If her work was as important as you claim, someone should have written about it, rather than just mentioning her name as a result of her employment. Thousands of mentions aren't equivalent to in-depth coverage. SmartSE (talk) 22:39, 14 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Smartse your comment, above, seems to totally ignore the points I made about what I see as your misinterpretation of ACADEMIC. Geo Swan (talk) 22:56, 14 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• WRT your dismissal of "passing mentions" - this thesis, for instance, devotes two and a half pages to Hodgkinson, the first Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs with a background in human rights law. I dispute your characterization of it as a "passing mention". For the wikipedia to function smoothly everyone should take a leaf from Gerald Weinberg's advice for the "egoless programming team". We all have to be prepared to consider that that we might be wrong and that they other guy has made valid points. We should welcome when the other guy makes a valid point, because we didn't come here to win arguments. We should be coming here to build the best encyclopedia possible, not to fight every argument to the bitter end.

The two and a half pages of coverage of Hodgkinson's role in crafting Detainee treatment begins with this paragraph...

Sandy Hodgkinson, a lawyer who worked detention issues at the National Security Council, had been trying to get the job since its creation. She applied after Waxman left, but Under Secretary of Defence Henry did not want to work with her. After Stimson left, the slot was open for several months before Secretary of State Condaleeza Rice called the new SECDEF, Robert Gates, to recommend Hodgkinson for the job. She was also endorsed by Waxman and John Bellinger at the Special War Crimes Issues Office at the Department of State, the office tasked with the transfer and release of detainees from GTMO. Even after these endorsements, the DOD was still not going to hire her. When Stimson heard people were upset over the vacancy his resignation created, he also recommended Hodgkinson get the job; she was finally hired in July 2007.

This is just one example, from one paper.

Some deletionists try to insist that every BLP include the mundane milestones of individuals lives - like date of birth, hometown, dates of marriages, births of children, degrees earned. Okay, when documentable, some of this material should be included. But it is not what makes an individual notable, and its absence does not erode their notability. DGG said it best, a decade ago. Individuals are notable for what they did and what they wrote (paraphrasing from memory), not for their marriages, children, hometowns.

Articles don't have to be perfect, to avoid deletion - they merely should be on notable topics. Geo Swan (talk) 23:49, 14 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Smartse, this link is to the chapter of a book on prosecuting pirates, written by Ms Hodgkinson. It includes a biography of several hundred words. I urge you to read it. Geo Swan (talk) 01:25, 15 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. Now it would be nice if she'd burnished her resume for us by posting topless selfies to Instagram, or made a public drunken spectacle of herself while DC barhopping with Don Rumsfeld and Condi Rice, or even winning on amateur night at the Silver Slipper, but I guess a few decades of high-level consequential government service will have to be enough. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo). Treated like dirt by many administrators since 2006. Fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong! (talk) 01:02, 12 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Weak keep but only if expanded. She is probably notable for what she has done, but the article at present just lists her positions. DGG ( talk ) 01:23, 15 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions. Necrothesp (talk) 11:13, 16 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.